


Three Keys to The Left

by jattendrai



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Healing, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 02:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16076453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jattendrai/pseuds/jattendrai
Summary: This was how they spent life --- in love, in quiet contemplation, drawing lines of close proximity that left each other just within reach of one another, in case one of them would want to cross the line to hold the other’s hand. It was a life of existing near each other but not much with each other --- but as far as Tony and Jeff were concerned, that was alright.





	Three Keys to The Left

**Author's Note:**

> I've always wanted to write a jefftony fic based on the song and music video for "The Time To Sleep" by Marble Sounds. I always thought it was a fitting song, and the video felt very much like Jeff and Tony to me in a sense? Though it may be warped due to how I perceive them, ha ha
> 
> My writing is getting surprisingly happier

Lines have been used to indicate space for as long as humans have felt the need to draw them. Lines can indicate the lack of [word], but it can also show the outline of where something might be; they can show where one must go or where one must stay away from, where two things must never meet or the edge of where they can. Lines can be crossed, and they could be made to be crossed, ie; finishing lines, or personal lines.

When Andonuts quote unquoted ‘passed away’ ( he was an aging old man but a body could not be found), the labs were refurbished under the strict instructions of his son Jeff, who returned to that side of Winters purely to see out construction. It was gutted and ripped from the inside out, various projects trashed and stored and recycled part-by-part. He didn’t care to keep anything that reminded him of his father --- if he didn’t care to remember his own son, then Jeff won’t care to remember him either.

The lab was then entirely refurbished --- metal interior was replaced with wood paneling and the floors tiles were removed and replaced with oak flooring. The windows were enlarged and the stairs were carpeted, and soon it looked much less like a lab and more like community center, one that echoed when you walked and stayed surprisingly warm.

 

Originally they were going to give it to Snow Wood, maybe as a gym center or for some outside activities, but Jeff ultimately decided to keep it in his name and make his own. 

Jeff… didn’t exactly become what his father would have wanted. He still had his fascinations in mechanics and repair, with some time spent still creating rockets and testing trajectory variables out in his backyard, but ultimately it wasn’t something he ever wanted to pursue into a career --- in fact, there wasn’t anything he wanted to pursue, so he never did.

Instead, he married Tony.

It still chokes him up every time he thinks about it; how Tony went off to some prestigious college in Eagleland to be a nurse, and how on the day of boarding his plane Jeff finally got the nerve to grab him by his sleeve in the kitchen and ask him to marry, that adrenaline of ‘what if I never see him again’ getting to him so badly that he asked without a beat to skip. He still remembers how Tony dropped his luggage and immediately covered his face instead of accepting Jeff’s open arms, not because he  _ didn’t  _ want to hug his now-fiancee but because the guy was still a big goof and was trying to hold back one his happy laughing fits.

It wasn’t at all romantic, but rather sudden and silly, and they hugged for too long and had to race to get Tony onto his flight while laughing and talking about if Tony could have his pet iguana as his best man ( Stanley Kubrick was a gift from Puu given to him from the Deep Darkness, and the answer was  _ ‘yes’  _ by the way).

So they got married upon his return, and Tony was a practicing nurse, and Jeff was a stay-at-home husband who got by trying to teach himself piano ( Tony knew how to play it and he wanted to make duets with him),and attempting to get Stanley to jump into his lap by threatening him with cheese sticks. They stayed in Winters but moved more up North, near some mountains and a small town that was in great need of a nurse that could travel to home bound patients in snowshoes and medical equipment.

And the lab become a sort of, space all for themselves. Jeff again decided not to give it up to Snow Wood, but at the same time had no real use for it --- but he tried to, by moving in the grand piano they got from Paula into it, and setting up a small space to teach himself how to draw ( he always wanted to learn but Snow Wood refused to fund an arts program), and there they created a sort of boundary, drawing lines around the lab that designated this space for themselves --- home was surely the same, but home was a place for company and friends too. This was just for them.

Jeff spent his days now sprawling out large sheets of paper --- ones nearly three times his size --- on the floor, spilling charcoal sticks and rubbing the knees of his jeans in as he attempted drawing after drawing. Tony would come by and play piano, or work on patient files while listening to the sound of his husband dragging pens and markers across rich paper, or nap on the floor as Jeff attempted to play something on the piano.

This was how they spent life --- in love, in quiet contemplation, drawing lines of close proximity that left each other just within reach of one another, in case one of them would want to cross the line to hold the other’s hand. It was a life of existing near each other but not much with each other --- but as far as Tony and Jeff were concerned, that was alright.

  
  


For the most part, Jeff didn’t draw much of anything important.

He practice flowers and gardens, and took notes out of gardening books Tony kept for when the snow would melt and he could start planting apricot trees; He attempted to draw his friends but could never manage faces; he tried his hand at landscapes, which came out very expressionist but muddled. He tried remembering the shapes of towns he saw in Eagleland and mimicking those, but to no avail.

“ How’s it going?” Tony appeared through the doors, a layered bundle of wool and fur. The snow was still fresh on him and on his snowshoe as he stomped it off at the front mat, notifying Jeff that there must be a storm going on outside. He never noticed.

Jeff was laying on one of the papers in anguish, his box of charcoals untouched. He had been lying like that for hours, staring up at the ceiling in hopes that any sort of idea would come to him that he could slap down on the paper. To no avail, however. Which is  _ bullshit _ .

“ Horrible.” He muttered.

“ Someone sounds grumpy,” Tony chuckled in reply, taking off his layers and hanging them on a wooden rack near the door. His snowshoes slipped off easily and were left on the rug.

“ My brain refuses to give me anything to draw and I  _ hate it _ ,” Jeff rubbed his eyes and groaned to emphasize his growing disdain for his own stupid brain, “ This was the only thing I wanted to do today and my brain isn’t even letting me  _ have it! _ ”

The anger in his voice was a bit too organic, and it worried Tony. He, of course, would always get a little upset when inspiration never came to him, but there was something underlying in Jeff’s heart that needed to be dealt with. Tony walked over to the piano.

“ Is everything alright?” He asked in a soft voice. He wanted to help.

It took a moment, but he inhaled deeply, and the expression of rage changed in Jeff’s face to something more… pained. Sorrowful. He rubbed his face again.

“ I couldn’t sleep last night.”

Oh.

He flipped the piano cover upright to reveal the keys, a worn out yellowish hue overlaying them from years of use in the sunlight. The piano was old, and it was well-loved in it’s time, and will be until it falls apart.

“ Was it the same dream?”

“ Yes.”

A few keys to the left, a scale to test out the sound. Tony never used the foot pedals though it would be a good idea to learn what use they had some time. He rested his fingers on the keys, both hands.

“ You could’ve called me,” Tony lamented to the piano.

“ I know,” He sounded upset now, “ I just…. It’s getting old.”

“ I know it is, but it’s a problem that affects you and we n--”

“ It wouldn’t  _ be  _ a problem if I didn’t let it get to me!”

He slammed his fists down to his side and the collision echoed. Tony didn’t flinch.

They let a moment of silence pass between them, as Tony kept his fingers rested above the keys and Jeff stared aimlessly at the ceiling boards. Jeff was sensitive to his own problems and didn’t like to admit vulnerability, in fear that what he considered a problem would be shouldered off as silly or an inconvenience upon others more than himself --- he internalized years of invalidation of his own problems, and in turn refused to believe he had any that were serious. All his problems were ‘’ridiculous’’ or ‘’his fault’’, and it left him in a hole he couldn’t climb out of. It hurt.

He started a song, something soft and simple. His fingers knew the tune by heart and could move against the keys without a second thought, without a sheet to guide him; the sound reverberated around the lab and blocked out all other noise, even for just a second.

All the while Jeff recounted the memory in his head. The evil that refused to just go away.

How long has it been since the fight? The day they faced the evil of the world embodied, the look of paint and water mixing in a dish to make grotesque swirls that were all-expanding and without form; the day he felt himself out of his body, as something inhuman looking at inhuman. 

He saw many things that day: He saw his friends crumble and die; he saw the wickedness of the world laughing at him as they were all knocked to their knees; he saw a pathetic sadness that screamed in pain and refused everything; he saw himself reflected in the glass as something that was neither there but here pierce his metal body and pass through him, both feeling everything at once become crushed within him and nothing at all, like he was empty and full at the same time.

It’s all he ever saw when he closed his eyes. Red. Endless red and black, swirling; expanding; screaming and crying. He couldn’t escape it wherever he went, and even when he was dead did he still hear and see everything he shouldn’t.

The music was getting louder but it felt like he was getting farther from it, like the world was expanding and the lines were being drawn to encase him where he laid, keeping everything out while holding everything in.

The keys just sounded like him. The cold just felt like him. He could see him even when he wasn’t there, though he never really was there to begin with either.

It hurt. It hurt and he wanted to rip it out of his chest and out his eyes and to rid himself of the sight, but no amount of therapy or talking or anything ever did anything for him -- he tried it all, he tried to bash his head into get the memories out, he tried to yank it out of his vision, he tried to cut the feelings out of his own chest but they still lingered because just like Giygas they were both here and not. Everywhere and nowhere.

He opened his eyes.

He could --

He could --

Immediately he sat up and grabbed for his charcoals, spilling out the box into a massive pile and sweeping away the unnecessary to find what he needed -- Tony kept playing on the piano but it was obviously he caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye. That didn’t matter know, though.

Furiously he scribbled and marked, dragging the sticks across the sheet. He jumped and ran the perimeter of the paper as lines grew violent and sudden and twisting, reds mixing with black and his hand smearing the landscape, shapes being tossed away and lines being broken for some sort of chaotic mess instead.

The piano was loud in his ears and it made his heart race, but who knew when this was going to disappear so he had to continue; he couldn’t think for one second, it could mess it all up, he had to focus on the single image of what haunted him, grip it in his arms so that it couldn’t run away even if it tried.

All he could see was black and red, it was against his hands and on his jeans and on the floor, but for once he was in control; he shaped every line and edge the way he wanted, made the colors shift to his liking and smeared the parts he refused to accept as ‘’good enough’’ --- all the while the sound of keys hitting hammers hitting strings, cries of B majors and wires screaming as loud as they could.

When it was finally over, he collapsed himself onto the drawing, tossing the nubs of charcoal away from himself. Rubbing his face produced streaks down his cheeks that would be hard to wash off, but that didn’t matter; the song had ended, his heart was racing and his hands were stiffening, and all he could see when he closed his eyes was pure darkness. His breaths was labored and heavy, but he felt alive.

Carefully, Tony slipped from his seat and walked towards his husband. There were no lines drawn in this moment; they had disappeared, somewhere. Jeff erased them. Without even thinking twice, Tony laid down next to him, and grabbed for one of his hands, stained with charcoal. He obliged.

“ It’s all over.” He said, out of breath.

“ I know.”

They stayed there, for a little while. Not thinking, not dreaming, not imagining. They just looked into the empty darkness and were satisfied. It was all he ever wanted.


End file.
